Urban Gentrification

Post Modernism

brain-4521220Structuralism

Post Colonialism

Positivism

Capitalism
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Marxism Unknown

The perspective that human actions, feelings and patterns are an outcome of overarching systems and structures

The perspective that all social phenomena can be explained through scientific principles and methods

All conclusions developed from systematic observations and data

Uses historic data to predict where and when urban gentrification will occur next

considers to incorporate supportive environment

aware of isues associated with power, inequality, and material welfare

offers multiple viewpoints that emphasizes difference, uniqueness and individuality

The history of the city

Colonization

Themes of racial oppression

embraces cultural diversity

‘map’ the meanings of the city for different ‘textual communities’ and read the city as ‘text’ with urban metaphors

"jungle", "bazaar", "organism" and "machine"

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masthead15-STANZA-0414b

rejects grand theory

rejects structuralism and distances from positivism

recognizes that the process of gentrification reconfigures the neighbourhood

impacts the community physically and socially, represented through changes in racial/ethnic composition
 average household income

results in negative influences and exclusion of minority groups

provides liberation from repression

reflects gender roles without power dominance, construct and provide alternative sexual identities

such as building ‘pink economy'

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rainbow crosswalks

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began to exert an influence on urban geography in the late 1980s and 1990s

Rent Gap

As properties loose value there reaches a time in which the profit being made by renting the exsiting unit is less than the potential profit that could be made by rebuilidng/refurbishing/updating the unit and renting it at a higher price

Modelling the rent gap as a function of time allows us to predict when a neighborhood will begin to gentrify

Colonialism

Certain phenomena can be predicted by the idea that history always repeats itself

Gentrification and colonialism can be related through the common stages that occur during each of them (Right to the City Montreal, "COLONIZING THE INNER CITY- GENTRIFICATION AND THE GEOGRAPHIES OF COLONIALISM.," Right to the City Montreal, 15 August 2012. [Online]. Available: https://righttothecitymtl.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/colonizing-the-inner-city-gentrification-and-the-geographies-of-colonialism/. [Accessed 2 February 2020].)

1. Recon

Studying the new territory to determine whether it is a worth moving into and developing

2. Invasion

Taking over the territory. In the case of gentrification, this is done by simply purchasing the property

3. Occupation

Moving people into the territory who fit the desired demographic

4. Assimilation

Allowing the new residents to pass there beliefs onto the existing residents in an attempt to convert them to the desired demographic

Gentrification is fuelled by an opportunity for better economic return

Neil Smith's Rent Gap Thesis Unknown

The process of invading lands for the purpose of settlement and/or resource exploitation

Typically refers to European empires forcefully colonizing foreign lands for exploitation

A gap emerges between actual value of the property and its potential value

Though this era is commonly referred to as a 'post-colonial' era, there are still patterns of colonization in cities in the form of gentrification

Cities were commonly areas reserved for lower and working class people

Urban areas were not seen as desirable, when one acquired wealth it was common to move out of the city to the suburbs

1980-e1416282363126

Promotes redevelopments of low-income neighbourhoods for profit, shifting areas to middle to upper-class

This graph shows the median income of households within Chicago in 1980, with high wage earners situated in the suburbs and low wage earners in the heart of the city

Recently, there has been a shift in housing desires, and these cities which housed often low wage earning racial minorities are becoming desirable to young, wealthy home buyers

As a result of this shift, existing buildings are being remodelled or torn down to make room for the new, more wealthy home buyers, forcing out people that are often the most systematically disadvantaged populations and are not in a position to resist these changes

Attracts investors and their friends/families to low-income neighbourhoods

Common patterns of colonization and gentrification

Reconnaissance

Invasion

Occupation

Assimilation

Commonly, those affected most by urban gentrification are radicalized minorities who are part of the lower class

In Canada gentrification is seen to have a specific impact on our Indigenous population

In the United States, African American populations are disproportionately effected

These populations are typically the same ones which were once displaced by the more traditional colonialism we think of, and are once again the targets of these new colonizations of gentrification

Sweat Equity

Gentrifiers increase the value of buildings by doing renovations themselves to significantly increase the value of low-income housing

Purchasing cheap real estate and doing renovations themselves is a lower risk investment than purchasing a more expensive project

The economic return of demolishing and replacing old buildings increases over time

Household Income img10500_Money_(2)

Tend to be low-income racial minorities affected

Choices of where the upper-class can make a profit restricts the lower-class options of where to live

For example, through the 1970's, cities such as London and New York had a movement of the middle-class moving to inner city neighbourhoods because of capital investment movement from the suburbs to the city, displacing low-income populations 120214HarlemGentrification

Gentrification is a movement of capital not of people

Every society is built on a mode of production

Idea that the form of economic organization influences all other social structures and relationships in society

Economy dictates our social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics, and ideologies

A mode of production society is built on, where people and companies make most of the economic decisions